In making a purely divine repast its goal, Paradiso takes a firm turn away from the appetites for food that have been seen so far in the poem. When, in Paradiso 2, Dante addresses those who “drizzaste il collo” (stretched out your necks) toward the “pan de li angeli” (bread of the angels), he warns that they are “non sen vien satollo” (never sated by it; Par. 2.10–12): a rejection, it may seem, of both the tangible human food through which he has commented on creativity and community and the metaphoric nourishment he has woven into his poetics. At the same time, the pilgrim undergoes a process of self-reflection in heaven that leads him to comment more than ever before on his expectations in this life, and his exposure to the perfection of the city of God enables him to imagine what the human city on earth might become. As he progresses into the inexpressible abstraction of Paradiso, the poet attempts to say what has never been said before, but his human language nevertheless engages the human concerns of appetite, provisioning, and nourishment while speaking through food and eating practices.

Before his arrival in heaven, the pilgrim must pass through the Earthly Paradise—perhaps the most evocative space for gluttony within the poem. The Garden of Eden is the only place humankind has ever experienced the contentment of a perfectly satisfied appetite, the only place body and soul enjoyed the quietude permitted by an utter lack of desire.